The Texas-based amusement park giant hopes to acquire, operate or lease existing parks within a two- to three-hour drive of its more than two dozen properties in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“There are dozens of parks within reasonable driving distance of our existing portfolio in the U.S. These these parks generate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue,” Six Flags CEO Jim Reid-Anderson said during a recent quarterly earnings call.

With Six Flags properties in the top 10 U.S. markets, the company’s buy-rather-than-build strategy puts many theme parks and water parks across the country in play.

“We are focused on finding parks in our current markets as well as in the feeder markets to our current theme parks,” Six Flags senior vice president of U.S. park operations Tom Iven told Blooloop.

Jim Reid-Anderson

The plan promotes cross visitation between neighboring parks, Iven said in an email interview. It gives existing season passholders another park to visit. It also allows Six Flags to sign up new season passholders and sell more dining pass memberships.

The seven smaller parks

Six Flags has added seven smaller theme parks and water parks at a “very low cost” in the past two years, Reid-Anderson said during an earnings call. The seven parks are:

Darien Lake near Buffalo, New York brought back Fright Fest in 2018 and brings back Six Flags to its name in 2019

Frontier City in Oklahoma CIty offered Fright Fest and Holiday in the Park during a newly-extended shoulder season in 2018

All but one of the properties, Wet n’ Wild Phoenix, formerly fell under the Six Flags umbrella.

Frontier City and White Water Bay create a new market for Six Flags in Oklahoma City that’s within driving distance of the chain’s Texas birthplace.

Magic Waters will add a second Six Flags-branded water park in Illinois associated with Six Flags Great America. Great America already has a Hurricane Harbor water park. Six Flags plans to replicate the twin water park strategy. “We can have more than one waterpark associated with each of our theme parks,” Iven said.

Tom Iven

With the new properties, Six Flags adds 20 million potential visitors within a 100-mile radius of one of the chain’s parks. This brings the total market potential to 200 million visitors, Iven said.

The recent expansion fits into Six Flags’ strategic plan to continue growing the chain’s North American footprint, Iven said.

“We are primarily looking at water parks, but we are also open to acquiring smaller amusement parks that complement our theme parks,” said Iven.

Quality over quantity

So what parks are in play? Six Flags won’t say.

“We are looking for quality over quantity,” said Iven, who began his Six Flags career in 1976 as a street sweeper at Six Flags St. Louis. He is now responsible for the management of all SIx Flags parks in the U.S.

Six Flags’ largest parks draw 3 million or more visitors annually. They are Magic Mountain (3.3 million), Great Adventure (3.2 million) and Great America (3.0 million).

Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain

If Six Flags is looking for smaller amusement parks, then Disney and Universal parks are obviously not on the table. Cedar Fair, SeaWorld/Busch Gardens and Herschend all have parks that draw similar attendance numbers as Six Flags parks.

Cedar Fair’s Kings Island, Cedar Point and Knott’s Berry Farm draw in the 3.5 million to 4 million range each year. SeaWorld’s flagship park in Florida attracts 3.9 million visitors annually. Herschend’s three parks — Dollywood, Silver Dollar City and Wild Adventures — draw fewer than 3 million visitors per year.

Two thirds of Cedar Fair’s 11 parks are within a 2- to 3-hour drive of a Six Flags park. So are a majority of the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks. Same goes for all of the Herschend parks.

Six Flags operates in about a dozen U.S. states in the Northeast, Midwest, Texas and California. The chain’s biggest theme park gaps are in Florida and Ohio.

Justice League at Six Flags Magic Mountain

The Six Flags North American expansion plan?

So what theme parks are within a 2- to 3-hour drive of a Six Flags park? Let’s take a closer look at similar-sized and smaller theme parks within 200 miles of a Six Flags location.

Six Flags Over Georgia

Dollywood (Pigeon Forge, Tennessee), Carowinds (Charlotte, South Carolina), Wild Adventures (Valdosta, Georgia), Lake Winnie (Rossville, Georgia) and the shuttered Ghost Town in the Sky (Maggie Valley, North Carolina) are all within driving distance of the Six Flags park outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

The Six Flags park in Northern California is within 100 miles of California’s Great America (Santa Clara), Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Gilroy Gardens.

Discovery Kingdom is about 20 miles from the newly Six Flags-branded Waterworld California water park in Concord.

The Six Flags park in Southern California is within 150 miles of SeaWorld San Diego, Legoland California (Carlsbad) and Knott’s Berry Farm (Buena Park).

The newly Six Flags-branded Wet ‘n’ Wild Phoenix water park in Phoenix, Arizona is about 400 miles from Magic Mountain.

Six Flags Great America

Mt. Olympus (Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin) and Indiana Beach (Monticello) are both within driving distance of the Six Flags park outside of Chicago, Illinois. Michigan’s Adventure (Muskegon) is across Lake Michigan from Great America. There are more than 20 indoor and outdoor water parks in Wisconsin Dells, dubbed the Waterpark Capital of the World.

The soon-to-be Six Flags-branded Magic Waters water park in Rockford, Illinois is about 100 miles from Great America.

Fright Fest

Six Flags America

The Washington, D.C. area Six Flags park is 2- to 3-hours from two Virginia theme parks. These are Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Kings Dominion (Doswell). Pennsylvania is the heart of America’s coaster belt. The state boasts a bevy of smaller parks. These include Hersheypark, Dorney Park (Allentown), Kennywood (West Mifflin), Knoebels (Elysburg), Idlewild (Ligonier), Conneaut Lake, Waldameer (Erie) and DelGrosso’s (Tipton). The world’s oldest roller coaster, Leap the Dips, is at Lakemont Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The New Jersey shore is home to many small oceanfront parks.

The Six Flags park in Missouri is within driving distance of two other parks in the state. They are Silver Dollar City (Branson) and World of Fun (Kansas City). The Schlitterbahn water park chain has a location in Kansas City.

Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags Fiesta Texas

Fiesta Texas is 15 miles from SeaWorld San Antonio. The newly Six Flags-branded Frontier City and White Water Bay in Oklahoma City are about 200 miles from Six Flags Over Texas. Wet ‘n’ Wild Splashtown in Houston adds a Six Flags water park within driving distance of the chain’s amusement parks in the San Antonio and Fort Worth areas. Wet ‘n’ Wild has another Texas water park location near El Paso. Texas-based Schlitterbahn has water parks in New Braunfels, Galveston Island, South Padre Island and Corpus Christi.

It’s important to note, none of parks or chains mentioned in this story have expressed interest in selling any properties. Similarly, Six Flags has not publicly identified any parks that the company is interested in acquiring, operating or leasing.

Brady MacDonald

Brady MacDonald is a freelance writer based in California. He wrote the Funland theme park blog for the Los Angeles Times for a decade. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, New York Newsday, Philadelphia Inquirer, Seattle Times, Orlando Sentinel and Orange County Register.

9 Comments

I can see Six Flags buying Alabama Splash Adventure, and maybe Wild Adventures.
I appreciate that ASA is run by the Koch siblings, but they must just not have the funds to add large attractions. Or, maybe they don’t want to. It’s located in a large city. That is, unless they don’t to add more properties to their portfolio that are known for fights and riots.
Wild Adventures is a really nice park, but has gotten stale. Six Flags could change it. Problem is it’s not near a largely populated city, and is located on a two-lane road way off the interstate.

I could also see them buying parks like Canobie Lake or Waldameer, or maybe Beech Bend, Lake Winnie, Indiana Beach, or Lake Compounce, which would be fine with me. but there are several parks that I hope they do not buy.

Here are some of my ideas:
Super Aqua Club would pair well with La Ronde and it appears the owner was arrested for some serious crimes and might be forced to sell the park.

Wet ‘n’ Wild Las Vegas is the only property Village Roadshow owns in North America and would pair with Six Flags Magic Mountain (adds a large new market to the chain, similar to the Wet ‘n’ Wild Phoenix deal). Village Roadshow is currently having financial issues.

Deep River Waterpark in Indiana would pair with Six Flags Great America and provide more exposure to the northwestern Indiana market. This park is owned by a local park district.

Schlitterbahn New Braunfels and Schlitterbahn Kansas City might interest Six Flags and are two of three Schlitterbahn parks that EPR Properties will acquire if Schlitterbahn defaults on their loan in May 2019.

Parques Reunidos (Palace Entertainment) had a bad year financially and the CEO resigned. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sell off some of the North American parks. Six Flags would probably be interested some of the waterparks (3 Raging Waters parks in California, Splish Splash on Long Island NY, and Wet ‘n Wild Emerald Pointe in Greensboro, NC).

Seems like Six Flags isn’t alone. Apex Parks groups is a company that is in the business of acquiring amusement/ water parks as well as family entertainment centers. Only being in business since 2014, I wonder if they could be convinced to deal strictly in family entertainment centers. Their two amusement parks (Indiana Beach and Fantasy Island) are within a three hour drive of Six Flags Parks (Great America and newly acquired Darien Lake respectively) and one of the water parks (Sahra Sam’s Oasis) is primarily indoor and less than an hour drive from Six Flags Great Adventure. I would think this would be a particularly attractive way to sell memberships with the year long incentive. The problem park is a water/adventure park ( Big Kahuna’s) located in the Florida pan-handle which is five plus hours to Six Flags Over Georgia as well as the tourist mecca of central Florida, but none the less looks to be a quality stand alone water park!

I appreciate the article. But this article lacks knowledge of the theme park industry. It implies that if six flags wanted to they could buy a universal or Disney park. That is an absurd statement. Also, it mentions many parks that six flags could buy that are part of the cedar fair chain. That is their direct competition. The only way that could ever be an option for them to buy one of those parks would be if Cedar Fair abandoned it like Six Flags did Kentucky Kingdom. Their is a very slim chance they could lease the seaworld parks and operate them, but very unlikely. I don’t see that happening anytime soon unless seaworlds large investments hurt their bottom line in the coming years. Sea world has worked very hard to turn their image around. Honestly, their best bet would be to rebrand themselves into “Seaworld Amusement” or something to imply they are not focused on animals. Thank you for writing the article, but cedar fair parks are off the table.

Thanks for your comment Ronald. The author does state that Disney/Universal are “obviously not on the table”. The main thrust of the article is a look at similar sized or smaller parks within a 2 to 3 hr drive of SF parks. As to Cedar Fair, SeaWorld etc who knows? It’s a changing market and really interesting to watch.

If you were paying attention to the articles about Premier Parks buying City Museum, you would notice that Premier Parks is down to 10 parks (not counting City Museum). The Premier Parks website still shows 11 parks(not counting City Museum). The articles that list the parks operated by Premier Parks are missing Wet ‘n’ Wild Palm Springs. This park is owned by EPR Properties and would be a good feeder park for Magic Mountain, so I am expecting an announcement from Six Flags soon.